


Quiet In Our Town

by thegreybeyond



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Explicit Language, F/M, Suicide, Violence, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 10:20:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreybeyond/pseuds/thegreybeyond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The earth is taking back what it’s lost. There are new terrors to battle now.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The end of the world comes not from the hand of Lord Voldemort, but an incurable disease. When Britain falls, those that are left must keep on running.</p>
<p>And never stop.</p>
<p>Winner of the 2012 Quicksilver Quill Award for Best Alternate Universe at Mugglenet Fanfiction. Originally posted at Mugglenet Fanfiction 2/7/2012.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quiet In Our Town

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my fabulous beta and friend, Natalie/hestiajones, for her invaluable advice, time, and sanity. Also thank you to my flist, especially Carole and Kara, who've been cheering me on like there really is no tomorrow.
> 
> The title and chapter title come from the song, Quiet In My Town by Civil Twilight, which served as inspiration for the fic. The original drabble was written for The Genre Challenge in the SBBC.
> 
> I am not J.K. Rowling, sadly.

_June 19th, 2012_  
  
Rose Weasley doesn’t like her name. She doesn’t like roses, at all. They’re boring. They’re everywhere she looks. The garden is full of them, and they surround the manor as if they’re trying to choke the walls.  
  
She’s not allowed outside the garden, though, so she has to put up with them all the same. The other children don’t seem to mind. Some of the other girls pick the roses and put the petals in their hair. They don’t want to know what’s beyond the garden walls and all the flowers. They’re happy enough.  
  
But Rose is not happy. When the grown-ups sit around at night, while the children are supposed to be asleep, she’ll sneak down the stairs and hide behind a tapestry and try to listen through the parlour walls. All she can hear are mumbles but it excites her to know that there are words inside the room, flying around, just waiting for her to catch them, because _she’s not supposed to know._ She wants to know everything.  
  
She wants to know what’s behind the garden walls, why all these families live together in this strange house she’s never left, the house that never feels quite right. She wants to know why the grown-ups sometimes call it ‘Malfoy Manor’ when they think they’re alone, why Draco would own this house when they all live here together.  
  
She wants to know why her mum will never enter the dining room, or why the books in the library tell stories of a different, open, beyond-the-wall world.  
  
She wants to know why some of the grown-ups can’t use magic, why they still seem nervous around her parents and Draco and Filius and the other witches and wizards.  
  
She wants to know, know, know.  
  
At night, when her mum tucks her in to bed, closing whatever book they’ve been reading, and drawing the blankets up below her chin, she asks about her name. It’s always the same reply but it doesn’t matter. She wants to know, anyway.  
  
“Because, when your dad and I came here, they were the first really beautiful things I’d seen in a long time.”  
  
“But Mum, where did you come _from?_ Where did we all come from?”  
  
Her mum smiles but Rose can tell it’s a frown. It always is. She’s learnt to tell the difference.  
  
“Somewhere else, sweetheart.”  
  
  
  
  
  
 _September 14th, 2000_  
  
Draco Malfoy thinks it’s fucking hilarious that they’re all taking shelter in _his_ home.  
  
Draco Malfoy thinks it’s a blessing in disguise that his father and mother are already infected and don’t have to see it, all these stray Muggles that Granger somehow managed to pick up along the way back to the Manor.  
  
He also thinks one of those stray Muggles is really fit but he’ll never admit that.  
  
(Who’s he going to admit it to, anyway? Ronald fucking Weasley over a nice cold beer?)  
  
Sometimes, Draco Malfoy wishes those damn zombies had bitten him before the Weasel and Bucktooth saved his godforsaken life.  
  
Yeah, right.  
  
Draco Malfoy thinks that someone out there must be laughing right along with him at the bloody serendipity of it all.  
  
  
  
  
  
 _September 1st, 2000._  
  
She holds his hand as they sprint through the streets, leaping over debris and panting through the stench of a ruined city. Her head whips back every few seconds, waiting for a clammy, rotting hand to reach out and grab her. She doesn’t want to die their death. She won’t.  
  
“We’ve lost them,” gasps Ron as they catch their breath behind an abandoned car.  
  
 _No, we haven’t._  
  
“Yeah,” she says, clutching her side even though she can’t feel a stitch, at all. It’s habit, she supposes. It’s interesting the way she’s picked it up after so much running. “Possibly.”  
  
It’s a complete lie, of course. It’s not possible! It’s _impossible_ because how can they manage to kill every one of them and live a normal life as the last people in Britain? But Ron’s eyes are so bright with hope it breaks the half-heart she still has and Hermione realises she can’t let him believe the impossible, anymore. There’s no time left for hope. No time for magic.  
  
“Ron, we’ll never lose them.”  
  
Sometimes, she wonders where those bright eyes could possibly come from. After everything. But Ron has grown from the scared, brave boy she went camping with all those years ago. She’s watched the light fall from his eyes more than once since this hell began and she knows she’ll see it again, but, somehow, that won’t stop him. It won’t stop her, either.  
  
All around them, their city lies in ruins. It amazes her how civilisation takes thousands of years to build up and only a few endless months to tear down. It wasn’t slow. It wasn’t a gradual decline. It was fast and full of raging fire, smoke, and the sticky smell of rot and waste. The only constant is the earth beneath their feet and the way it sprouts up between the cracks of concrete, pushing forth green fronds of life as if it’s been waiting for humanity to fall.  
  
The earth is taking back what it’s lost. There are new terrors to battle now.  
  
Ron looks into the sky and squeezes her hand. She sighs. It’s enough of an answer for her to know that he doesn’t give a damn. He’ll keep going. He’ll keep hoping. He’ll make her hope, too.  
  
Then there is a yelp. It’s so brief that she’s sure she imagined it.  
  
“What the hell was that?” Their eyes lock. They haven’t heard a sound that high, or loud, or unmistakeably human for weeks.  
  
So, they’re running again, towards the noise, towards the living sound.  
  
When they turn the corner to face the sight of a thin, blonde almost-man cowering from a group of the undead, shooting uselessly brilliant flames and light from his wand, it’s the brightest, most hopeful sight in the world.  
  
But he’s being stupid. Fire is no use. They’re not Inferi. He could scorch their flesh for the rest of time and it wouldn’t stop the rotting hands from clamping around his throat.  
  
So, he’s the most stupidly hopeful sight in the world. It’s rather fitting, she thinks.  
  
“Move your arse, Malfoy!” yells Ron as Hermione pulls out her gun. She’s got the better aim from a distance and Ron’s been hesitant ever since-  
  
 _Ever since._  
  
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.  
  
Done.  
  
“How many times do we have to save your life? Once not enough?”  
  
She grabs Malfoy’s hand and then they are running once more. _Keep going, keep going, keep going._ When will they ever stop, she thinks. When will they ever rest? He’s gasping for breath as they run and she ignores the miserable whimpers of _it was my mother, it was my mother._  
  
That night, he tells them his story in quiet, unrelenting mumbles. They sit in a tight circle, their faces shifting between the brightest shadow and darkest light from the flames flickering in the jar between them. He sounds as if he hasn’t spoken in months. He hasn’t. When he finally stops and looks up, he asks them the first question she’ll never be able to answer.  
  
“What were you doing? You know, before you found me?”  
  
Ron gives him a strange look and shrugs.  
  
“There is no before.”  
  
  
  
  
  
 _August 15th, 2000_  
  
It’s been ten weeks since they noticed the first signs, nine since the Ministry fell and the Wizarding world’s worst secret spilled out into the Muggle streets of London, eight since England, Scotland, and Wales were shut off from the rest of the world.  
  
It’s been one week since he left them.  
  
 _I’ll be ten minutes, thought I saw some bottled water in the building across the road_.  
  
Hermione looks at Ron and Ron looks at Hermione. There are tears on her cheeks but she brushes them away, because they are not useful at all; they are a distraction neither of them can afford.  
  
“Ron, he’s-”  
  
“Don’t. Don’t say it.”  
  
They’ve spent seven days searching. _Maybe he fell, maybe he hit his head, maybe he broke a leg and couldn’t walk back. Maybe._ They’ve spent seven days creeping through the surrounding buildings, opening every cupboard, whispers turning into louder calls, expanding into shouts, exposing themselves in ways they’ve learnt to avoid, not caring about anything but finding Harry, and slowly drifting farther and farther away from their base.  
  
Hermione allows herself to cry for a few minutes each night. Ron stares blankly at Harry’s sleeping bag, rolled out and waiting. They ignore the fourth sleeping bag propped up against the wall.  
  
But he’s been gone too long now, so they pack up the weapons, sliding guns into holsters on their hips, wands up sleeves, and knives. They haven’t had to use the knives yet and she knows that when the time comes it will probably be too late. If they’re that close then a knife isn’t going to do much.  
  
Then they run.  
  
 _He’s been gone too long._ Neither says a word but the guilt is solid in their chests. They want to believe he’s still alive; they want to believe he’s been hiding somewhere, unable to get back to them. They want to believe that leaving is the right thing.  
  
The problem is, spells don’t hold the terrors at bay and the longer they stay, the heavier their scent, so it’s best to run, best to keep their beating hearts on the move. She leaves a scarf behind.  
  
When they finally reach an office block that doesn’t hold the heady stench of death, he pulls her tight against his chest, and she tries so very hard to forget where they are and everyone they’ve left behind. It’s gone from family, to a few friends, to four, to three.  
  
And now it’s just two.  
  
When they’re dressed, she holds him while he tries to hide the sobs. Darkness descends. She conjures flames in a jar like they’re eleven years old at Hogwarts. Thinking about that, holding onto it in her heart is another kind of warmth, one that she is reluctant to give up despite the aching pain such memories bring.  
  
Her head snaps up. There is a shuffling outside the room that doesn’t sound like a draught. Sobbing forgotten, they stand, pulling out their weapons, preparing for battle, and it feels like yesterday when they were defending her blood for a different reason. When she thinks about it, not much has changed except the knowledge that death really is the end.  
  
The door swings open and in the flickering light, Hermione smiles.  
  
“Oh, Harry,” she says, her breath sharp with relief and the sudden realisation that the wait is over. Now, she truly understands what Ginny meant.  
  
She smiles at Harry through the tears, keeps on smiling, never wanting to stop even as Ron aims, closes his eyes, and shoots his best friend in the head.  
  
  
  
  
  
 _July 1st, 2000._  
  
Whatever happened to stealth?  
  
One minute they’re sitting around sharing a can of baked beans between the four of them and then suddenly seven zombies come running at them from out of nowhere. They’re not quiet either. He can hear the wet grunts, the moans, and the slip-slide of their not-quite-co-ordinated feet.  
  
The four of them scramble up and begin to sprint back down the alley they’ve been sitting in, and it strikes Ron what a stupid place it was to hide, and how so very tired they must be to be so thoughtless.  
  
It’s not a great way to start running - thinking about how tired he feels. A cold hand clamps down on his leg as he begins to move and he kicks it away with a yelp, stumbling forward into a rubbish bin until his feet find their way and begin to co-operate with his mind. _For Merlin’s sake, run!_ His breath feels so cold in his chest that it hurts to breathe.  
  
Harry is shouting but with the sweat and fear blinding his sight, he cannot quite hear him. His head throbs with pounding blood, his legs ache from all the other running they’ve had to do, his stomach rumbles because he hadn’t eaten from the can, yet. Then, someone grabs his hand. It’s not quite soft enough to be Hermione, not quite large enough for Harry.  
  
“Come on, Ron!”  
  
When they were children, Ron and Ginny used to pretend they were Aurors. They would run around the garden, hand in hand, just like this, with imaginary dark creatures chasing them.  
  
Why do they have to be so real? Once, Ron thought You-Know-Who was enough danger for a lifetime, that nothing else could come close to making him shit his pants.  
  
He was wrong. Obviously.  
  
They make it out of the alley. The city is a brown-grey blur around them as they sprint down the streets. He can see Harry and Hermione just ahead of them and he can feel the undead just behind him. How are they so fast? You’d think rotting limbs weren’t so, well, limber.  
  
“Your guns!” He can finally hear what Harry is shouting. Ginny reaches for her own gun but she stumbles. It falls from her hands, clattering on the concrete, and then it’s gone. They can’t stop.  
  
“Fuck!”  
  
Ron pulls his own gun from the holster, aims over his shoulder and begins littering the air with bullets. Now, he definitely can’t hear a thing. Harry and Hermione are shooting beside them, too.  
  
He’s not sure how it happens but suddenly he’s flying through the air, landing hard on the ground with a mouthful of blood. Ginny’s hand falls from his own and though his ears are deaf from the gun, he hears her scream. Cold hands grab at his ankles. He kicks them away as Hermione grabs at his shoulders, pulling him up with a strength he didn’t know she had. His head whips around for Ginny but he can see she is already running again, Harry’s arm around her waist.  
  
Hermione pulls him behind a car, hands him a spare gun, and with seven precise shots the zombies fall, twitching, to the ground.  
  
Ron carefully places the new gun within his holster and collapses against the car as Hermione checks his ankles for bites. Nothing. When he can breathe again without a thousand needles attacking his lungs, they move out from behind the car and approach the bodies. It’s with a quiet apprehension, each time they kill one. He always has the sickening thought that it might be someone they know, that it might be a friend, or one of his brothers, or his parents. He looks down into the haggard faces of the seven zombies lying before him and let’s out a breath of relief. They’re all strangers.  
  
It’s easier to kill a stranger.  
  
“Ron? Hermione?” Harry’s voice carries soft and broken across the street. He’s standing in the doorway of an abandoned house.  
  
“Come on,” he tells Hermione and with one last glance at the bodies, he walks across the street. Harry has already disappeared within the dark building but they can hear him and Ginny speaking further down the hallway. They walk into a large living room. Ginny is slumped on the floor against a couch. Harry is crouched beside her, holding her hand.  
  
“Oh,” whispers Hermione from beside him. She pulls out her bag and rummages around in it before pulling out a small glass bottle.  
  
“You know it won’t work, Hermione,” says Ginny with a grim smile. “Don’t waste it on someone who’s already dead.”  
  
Ron rushes over to her, falling to his knees and shaking his head at the large bite on her forearm, as if his disbelief will make it go away.  
  
 _No, no, no._  
  
He’s not quite sure how time works but it seems to move faster now that he wants it to slow the hell down. He leans back against the couch and pulls Ginny to his side, breathing her in and trying not to think about his other family. He’s not ready to be alone.  
  
“Give me the gun,” she says. Ron looks down at his little sister and shakes his head. Harry is gripping her hand so tight it looks like it’s going to fall off. It doesn’t matter, he thinks. She’ll soon be dead, anyway.  
  
“No,” says Ron, firmly, stroking the hair from her face. “No. You’re going to be fine.”  
  
Ginny’s eyes flicker over to Hermione and the gun in her hands.  
  
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Ron, don’t lie to me. Please, Hermione, give me the gun.”  
  
Hermione opens her mouth and shifts her hands as if she’s not quite sure what to do. That’s when he knows they’re screwed. Ron wonders if he’ll ever forget that look, if he’ll ever forget the weight of Ginny’s head in his lap, and the look in Hermione’s eyes; defeat.  
  
“Let me do it. I don’t want you to see me like this. I don’t want to become one of _them_.” She spits out the word as if it’s infected, too. “And I don’t want you to have to do it.”  
  
 _It’s easier to kill a stranger._  
  
The light in the room seems to drift sideways, leaving half in shadow and half in a grey sort of yellow.  
  
They sit with her for hours until she tells them to leave. Hermione has to pull Harry away. She leans down and kisses Ginny’s forehead before taking Ron’s hand and pulling him away, too.  
  
“You’ve got to do this. For her.”  
  
He’s shaking his head. He’s dragging his feet. He can’t leave.  
  
Somewhere, in the recesses of some distant, dingy room, Harry is crying. He tears his eyes away from Ginny to look at Hermione and realises that she is crying, too.  
  
 _I love you, I love you, I love you,_ he chants. He’s not sure if it’s out loud or if it’s in his mind because there is something loud and blunt hammering against his eyes and ears.  
  
“Please,” croaks Ginny, and Hermione surprises him once more with a hard shove that sends them all out into the hallway and back into the street. Ginny’s eyes seem to follow them with every step even though she’s far from view, now.  
  
When they hear a shot ring out, Ron has never felt so tired in his life.  
  
  
  
  
  
 _June 5th, 2000._  
  
Ron wants to go to St. Mungo’s. Harry wants to go, too. Hermione doesn’t. No, Hermione _won’t._ She wants to but she won’t. Her hair falls about her face as she scribbles notes furiously across the parchment. Kingsley needs this memo, now. There is absolutely no time to waste.  
  
For there is a reason St. Mungo’s is full. There is a reason the ill are not returning from behind its walls, a reason why the Healers who go on duty do not walk out after the end of their shifts. There is a reason that Bill, Charlie, Percy, and George have not been seen since visiting their parents in hospital five days ago.  
  
It’s impossible but Hermione does not dwell on impossible things. She twists her thoughts, shaping them into whatever constitutes the truth no matter how far from possibility those thoughts may drift. No matter how frightening the truth may be. She’s learnt to be open.  
  
The thick tome before her is old. Its pages are browning, its spine flakes at the slightest touch. It’s taken her three days to find. Hermione wonders how long it has been since the book was last open, how many pairs of eyes have read the ancient words within its pages.  
  
She sends the memo off in a flurry, racing to the Auror’s office. She’s tapping her foot in a lift when the door opens and her memo flies back in, hovering at her shoulder. She grabs at it, tearing the seal. It is not Kingsley’s sprawling handwriting that greets her but the neat hand of his secretary, instead.  
  
 _The Minister has been taken ill._  
  
Hermione is alone so she swears out loud before trying to quell the rising panic.  
  
  
  
  
  
 _May 29th, 2000._  
  
He’s frightened, now. It’s that _ripple pulse thud_ fear that feels like his heart is going to shrivel and fall into his stomach. Luna’s forehead is beaded with sweat, her face is a pale, sickly grey, and her eyes are red, so red, it’s like he’s looking at fire. She moans, too. He’s never heard her moan before.  
  
Xeno has felt fear, though. And there is a brusque part of him that says she’ll be fine because they’ve been through worse, and after all his research, all his theories, he never expected this so it can’t be true.  
  
There’s a part of him that believes the inhuman rasp of _it’s okay, Daddy, I’m okay._  
  
But.  
  
He knows what death looks like, too. There’s a part of him that knows she won’t be fine as the blood spatters his face when she coughs, as the moans deepen and he can’t recognise her voice anymore.  
  
 _It’s not okay, my Luna. You’re not okay._  
  
If he brews enough Dirigible Plum Tea! If he spoon by slow spoon feeds her Plimpy Soup! If he grinds up Gurdyroots! If he does all this she’ll be fine, he knows, he knows!  
  
He believes!  
  
But he doesn’t. Not really.  
  
Xenophilius Lovegood is watching his daughter become a conspiracy theory right before his eyes but he doesn’t believe it at all.  
  
He doesn’t believe in the Ministry, either. He doesn’t believe in St. Mungo’s. He believes in some people, though, and he knows that Luna believes in friends. So he goes for help. He goes for help, over the hills, to the closest friends he knows. Just over the hills.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 _May 28th, 2000_  
  
The forest is alive with sound, so much so that Luna isn’t sure where to look, she wants to look everywhere, so she spreads her arms wide and twirls round and round until she falls in a heap. Her fingers curl around the bruised leaves of the forest floor. Xenophilius walks ahead and is soon lost from view. She sighs and lets her head fall back, staring up through the canopy, closing her eyes and watching the pinpricks of white falling softly behind her eyelids.  
  
It’s so loud. Through the groan of leaves and trees, she hears a muffled squeak.  
  
“Daddy?” she calls, quietly. “Daddy, come back. I think I heard one!”  
  
Xeno is soon at her side, emerging through the trees as if he never left.  
  
“Where, my Luna?”  
  
“Over there,” she replies, pointing to his left, and they turn, silent, patient, waiting. There is another squeak and Luna smiles as her father’s eyes light up.  
  
“Now,” he says, drawing his wand from his pocket, “if we can tempt him out with yellow smoke rings-”  
  
He pauses abruptly. The squeaks are louder now and with a flash of yellow fur, a strange creature pushes through a mass of ferns. It’s squat and fluffy, with a long snout and beady eyes that are as black as black.  
  
Luna moves forward, hands outstretched and open.  
  
“Look at him! He is real. He is real, Luna!”  
  
Xeno nods at her, urging her towards the creature.  
  
“The Snorkack has incredible healing properties. It is said in ancient texts that the Ministry hides from intellectuals like us, that the bite of a Snorkack has the ability to clean the world of all disease and destruction. Not that those quacks at St. Mungo’s would believe me...”  
  
Luna reaches forward and slowly pats the fluffy, yellow snout. There is a loud yowl and she jumps back at the sound, gasping in the sharp air of early Swedish spring. Xeno sighs happily and takes Luna’s hand in his.  
  
There, on her palm, is a small bite.


End file.
